


The Elixir of Endless Dreams

by Anna_Hopkins



Series: Elixir!verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Addiction, Astral Projection, Depression, F/M, Fantasy, Hallucinogens, Hogwarts, Lucid Dreaming, Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Anna_Hopkins
Summary: Severus Snape is all too aware of the impermanence of the world around him, and of his own mortality. Some nights, it gets to be too much for him; on those nights, he takes three drops of a substance of his own creation, and allows himself a night in the dream worlds that filled his youth...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Snape is a character I never expected to work with very much in fanfiction, but as I got older, I realized the depth of his character could, and did, go much further than was addressed in the books. I've rated it mature for now in anticipation of including more disturbing content in the future, as I am wont to do.
> 
> This is my first Harry Potter fanfic on AO3, please let me know what you think in the comments!

_When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men;_  
_when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly,_  
_in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads;_  
_when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more_  
_save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes;_  
_when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever,_  
_there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest_  
_into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled._  
\- "Azathoth"

   
  
---  
  
 In the dimly lit rooms that made up his quarters at Hogwarts, Severus Snape went about his business as quietly as he could. Silence had become a treat for him since he joined Hogwarts as the Potions Professor; before that, he had been alone in Spinner's End, and before _that_ , the missions the Dark Lord had given him necessitated absolute stealth. The habits he had developed during those years of his young adulthood were now most often displayed in the way he prowled the rows of desks during his classes, looking over students' shoulders as they worked.

He stared into the mirror of his private bathroom, recalling those moments, and then flinched as his eyes refocused on his face in the reflection -- so much different than he saw himself in his mind's eye, so much older and more tired than he used to be. That was what age was, that disconnect, and Severus disliked it, would rather have never changed in appearance past twenty-five. For a brief moment, anger at his helplessness against time flared up, but it settled down to the low simmering disappointment which more often coloured his thoughts. He turned away from the mirror and went back to his chambers to get ready for bed.

There was a mirror in the bedroom also, remnant of a younger man's vanity, that when he changed into his nightclothes showed off the Dark Mark against his pale inner arm. Severus gave it a cursory glance, checking it for changes in color contrast or shape, things he would report to Dumbledore as necessary; he reminded himself that he was supposed to be loyal to the Order now, was supposed to have forsaken all his previous loyalties.

Was supposed to have come to terms with his eventual demise, according to Dumbledore, who in all his wisdom insisted that fighting death was a Dark wizard's dream. Severus couldn't button up the nightshirt properly; his hands were shaking, and his vision was clouded with tears that had emerged on their own. If it was going to be one of _those_ nights, he would have to go get the elixir from the cabinet after all.

He managed to get the important buttons done up, at least, and wiped his eyes, before going over to the black lacquered cabinet that faced the side of his four-poster bed and carefully opening the enamelled doors. Inside, on a small velvet cushion fringed with gold, sat an even smaller bottle, unassuming in appearance. It was stoppered with an eyedropper, like a Muggle saline bottle would have, and the fluid inside the tiny glass thing was nearly transparent. Dumbledore had asked him once, if it was Veritaserum, and he had lied and said it was. But as Severus filled the eyedropper, hands no longer shaking, he could detect the faint scent of figs that distinguished it from Veritaserum immediately -- the latter potion had no scent or taste.

He made sure to wipe his eyes carefully before holding the lids open and letting one, two, three drops of elixir fall into each eye. The effects of this elixir, one of Severus' own creations, included an immediate feeling of sleepiness that he had to struggle to resist until the cabinet was closed and locked again. The pomegranate smell diffused throughout his sinuses; in a place that was slowly beginning to seem further and further away, Severus recalled that in the Muggle stories, messengers from the promised lands had brought pomegranate to the ancient prophet, to prove the lands were real and fertile. He had kept that symbolism in mind when devising the elixir, had wanted to find a promised land for himself away from the life he had lived...

But no, now there was no need to think of those things. He was floating away from that world, away from the troubles that came with it; he was flying through a snowstorm, with the snowflakes pressing soft over his ears, and the particles before his eyes were white and grey and red and yellow, swirling and flowing across his field of vision. The silhouettes of mountains faded into the background, an eternity away, and he had the time and the motive to reach them before long.

He alighted upon the summit of the highest mountain on the range, and below him were the vast golden birch forests where silver-hide deer would walk in stride with him. Here, he could have any name that he desired, and he chose to be the call of the songbirds that had nested in the tree from his childhood. He could have any shape he desired, and he chose this time to be a younger version of himself (as he often did), one who did not bear the Dark Mark, one who did not even know what the Mark was or what it meant. The world was his to explore, his to populate with living creatures, and he did not have to wonder at their deaths; they were as eternal as he was.

~

Some centuries later, it felt, he had spent enough time in the land of dreams with the deer and the birds and the trees, and raised his gaze to the empty skies above, floating up to the world that called for him. There was no need to fight that pull of the void. This land was always here for him, if he desired it.

Severus woke in his bed with the remnants of the elixir droplets sparkling his vision with happy colours; in the bathroom, the stuff turned a dark blue as he washed it off his cheeks. He saw the same face in the mirror as before, but it no longer bothered him. For the next few days, he knew, he would remain at peace.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant Music: Astral Silence - "Astral Journey" (album)


End file.
